The 2018 Men's Hockey World Cup was the 14th edition of the Hockey World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national field hockey teams organized by the FIH. It was held from 28 November to 16 December 2018, at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, India.[1] The inauguration ceremony which was held on 27 November 2018, witnessed the biggest ever drone flying show in India.[2][3]

Bidding

In March 2013, one month after the FIH published the event assignment process document for the 2014–2018 cycle, Australia, Belgium, India, Malaysia and New Zealand were shortlisted as candidates for hosting the event and were asked to submit bidding documentation,[5][6] a requirement that Belgium did not meet.[7] In addition, one month before the host election, Australia withdrew their application due to technical and financial reasons.[8] India was announced as host on 7 November 2013, during a special ceremony in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Qualification

Due to the increase to 16 participating teams, the new qualification process was announced in July 2015 by the International Hockey Federation. Each of the continental champions from five confederations and the host nation received an automatic berth, and the 10/11 highest placed teams at the Semifinals of the 2016–17 FIH Hockey World League not already qualified would enter the tournament. The following sixteen teams, shown with final pre-tournament rankings, competed in this tournament.[9]

^1 – India qualified both as host and continental champion, therefore that quota was given to China as the highest-ranked team from the 2016–17 Hockey World League Semifinals not already qualified.

Format

The 16 teams were drawn into four groups, each containing four teams. Each team played each other team in its group once. The first-placed team in each group advanced to the quarter-finals, while the second- and third-placed teams in each group went into the crossover matches. From there on a single-elimination tournament was played.